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Apple acquires Pixelmator

pixelmator.com

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Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#161

Post by latexr »

robotresearcher wrote: post #140
latexr wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like those ideas are contradictory. Exploring alternatives just in case is wasting energy. For example, for months I’ve been thinking of trying Inkscape to replace Affinity Designer, yet I keep putting it off because I’m not exactly enthused about the idea of having to learn yet another vector app again and deal with all its bugs and quirks.

Exploring is not wasted. Fretting is wasted.

It is wasted, because in this situation you’re forced to do it. If you end up not switching, all the time you spent trying something else comes to nothing. If you do switch, you were still forced to spend a bunch of time looking for something.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#162

Post by ozten »

handsclean wrote: post #148

Man, I don’t think this will be good for users. The biggest shortcoming of Pixelmator is its lack of Windows support. This rules out use in most of the professional world, not because one must run Windows, but because one must collaborate with others. Pixelmator has long been Apple-centric, but while previously I’d hoped that, in the right situation, they might expand their strategy, now I can’t imagine I will ever b…

Why do you say Affinity sold out?

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#163

Post by ozten »

Bummer. I switched to Affinity (Photo, Designer) this year and am very happy. You can buy a lifetime license across all platforms (iPad, Mac, Windows) for a fixed price. It is great to have high quality software that is not a subscription.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#164

Post by SllX »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #130
blihp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talent and ideas that were Pixelmator will be substantially diffused as it's absorbed by Apple... most of what you liked about Pixelmator is likely no more over the next year or two. Depending on Apple's reasoning for the acquisition (i.e. how much of it was just for the talent vs the product) you'll may see some small glimpses of Pixelmator's influence a couple years from now in Apple's stuff. Most of the time A…

On acquisitions like DarkSky (RIP), sure. This looks a lot more like a Logic-style acquisition. Pixelmator would slot nicely into the same consumer set of productivity apps that ship with all Macs (Pages, Numbers, Keynote). Photomator will get them back into the market they abandoned when Aperture was shuttered. Speaking of Aperture… am I the only person who remembers that Apple owns Claris? Why didn't Apple just han…

Claris isn’t really a dumping ground anymore. That’s how it started, but they’ve evolved their own business since then.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#165

Post by jdgoesmarching »

chias wrote: post #117

Call me jaded but > Stay tuned for exciting updates to come. the vast majority of the time the exciting updates end up being: 1. The product you know and love will continue with no difference! We just have free funding! Isn't that great! 2. We have stopped sales of the product, but don't worry, if you already own it you can continue to use it. 3. On X date it will stop working. Please migrate over to [other thing] wh…

There’s a great Tumblr that tracks this exact phenomenon

https://www.tumblr.com/ourincrediblejourney

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#166

Post by mxey »

blihp wrote: post #110
lynndotpy wrote: post #68

Is there any way this can go bad? When Apple acquired DarkSky, they absolutely destroyed a service that I loved and relied on. Four years on, Apple Weather is less reliable than DarkSky, and not even close to feature complete. But DarkSky was a cross-platform service, whereas Pixelmator is software that's already Apple-only. I'm wondering how much I should be worried, and if I should already be abandoning ship.

The talent and ideas that were Pixelmator will be substantially diffused as it's absorbed by Apple... most of what you liked about Pixelmator is likely no more over the next year or two. Depending on Apple's reasoning for the acquisition (i.e. how much of it was just for the talent vs the product) you'll may see some small glimpses of Pixelmator's influence a couple years from now in Apple's stuff. Most of the time A…

Workflow becoming Shortcuts mostly as-is would be a counterexample.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#167

Post by handsclean »

ozten wrote: post #162
handsclean wrote: post #148

Man, I don’t think this will be good for users. The biggest shortcoming of Pixelmator is its lack of Windows support. This rules out use in most of the professional world, not because one must run Windows, but because one must collaborate with others. Pixelmator has long been Apple-centric, but while previously I’d hoped that, in the right situation, they might expand their strategy, now I can’t imagine I will ever b…

Why do you say Affinity sold out?

They sold to Canva, which is strictly subscription based. As far as I know there haven’t been negative changes yet, but we’re still in the period before we’d see them.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#168

Post by jbverschoor »

askafriend wrote: post #113
blihp wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The talent and ideas that were Pixelmator will be substantially diffused as it's absorbed by Apple... most of what you liked about Pixelmator is likely no more over the next year or two. Depending on Apple's reasoning for the acquisition (i.e. how much of it was just for the talent vs the product) you'll may see some small glimpses of Pixelmator's influence a couple years from now in Apple's stuff. Most of the time A…

Pixelmator as a product is literally what Apple would have built anyway if they made an attempt. The difference here is how aligned the original team is with their acquirer...down to the corner radius on every button. With other products like Dark Sky, the product is substantially different in philosophy or design.

There’s no way Apple can build this. Their human interface people all seem to be gone on the desktop. So many things work so bad these days when they migrated to the new ui framework.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#169

Post by groby_b »

echoangle wrote: post #129
wkat4242 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Apple bought this to mothball it. That only makes sense if it competes with your own products. Which this doesn't.

I think the point was that cross-platform is mothballed now, there probably won't be a windows version of pixelmator now.

There never was going to be one. The pixelmator team is deeply steeped in the Apple world, and I seriously doubt they'd ever consider Windows.

Re: Apple acquires Pixelmator

#170

Post by robenkleene »

bangaroo wrote: post #7

apple's pro apps have been in a weird space for a while. aperture dying was a bummer, and final cut and logic feel simultaneously actively developed and abandoned to me, there's just not much buzz around them. it would be very neat if apple started to build the necessary portfolio of software to provide a viable, ideally not-subscription-based competitor to adobe's suite of products. they certainly have had the chops…

It's weird seeing all this discussion of this being a new entry into Apple's pro apps, I'm curious what you folks think Apple has to gain from expanding their pro line up today?

Apple was into pro apps 20 years ago when they were trying to win over creatives to their new platform (OS X). That's hasn't been a priority for them since then, they've vaguely migrated to the prosumer market (Final Cut Pro X). But that strikes me more as a compromise to give the products more life without doing things that are antithetical to Apple (mainly backwards compatible, i.e., real pros need this).

I've speculated here that my only guess is this is about visionOS (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42018695), but curious to hear from anyone what specific problem expanding their pro line up solves beyond that? (I guess maybe getting another pro app on iPad is a little bit of something, but I don't think that's acquisition worthy.)

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